Title: Kingdom of the Wicked
Author: Kerri Maniscalco
Series: Kingdom of the Wicked
Age Category: Young Adult
Published by: 27 October 2020 by Hodder and Stoughton
Pages: 372 p.
Genre: Romantasy, Paranormal Romance
About Kingdom of the Wicked
Emilia finds her sister murdered in the monastery and is hell-bent on finding out who murdered her sister.
She will do anything, even using forbidden magic to summon a demon. She gets far more than what she bargained for, instead of summoning a demon, one of the princes of hell appears. Wrath seems to be on her side, but with the Wicked walking the earth again, nothing is what it seems.
My thoughts on Kingdom of the Wicked
You know a book is great when you can’t put it down. On my first night with Kingdom of the Wicked, I devoured 65 pages, which is a lot for me! The story pulls you in from the start, designed to captivate and keep you turning pages.
One thing this book did exceptionally well? It made me hungry. Nearly every time I started reading, food was mentioned—delicious Sicilian dishes that had my mouth watering. I’ve always had a soft spot for Italian cuisine, so much so that we even tried making one of the dishes ourselves. Let’s just say we need more practice to get it right.
Another aspect I loved was the setting, Italy, specifically Sicily. The book is sprinkled with Italian words, which I enjoyed, especially since I recognized most of them before they were explained. Turns out, studying Spanish was useful after all! Italian and Spanish share quite a few words, though the pronunciation differs. I think this was a clever way for the author to subtly immerse the reader in the setting.
I honestly don’t know how to put into words just how much I loved this book. It completely hooked me, I devoured it and immediately jumped into the second book of the series. You know that feeling when a book grips you so hard that you just have to keep reading? And when you finish, you crave the rest of the series like you’re starving for more? That was me. I even started hunting for the Fairyloot editions online and managed to snag Kingdom of the Feared for a decent price (€35). I’m still searching for Kingdom of the Cursed at a reasonable price, so if you’re in Europe and selling your Fairyloot copy, email me. I’d love to take it off your hands!
Now, back to the book, one of the biggest reasons I loved it was Wrath. He was absolutely delicious. The banter between Emilia and Wrath had me laughing out loud. Emilia herself is a strong character, though a bit naive at times, which makes sense given her sheltered upbringing. I appreciated that she didn’t blindly trust the Wicked, she challenged them and got stuck in over her head on multiple occasions.
That said, she did make a few questionable decisions, like chasing after a demon with almost no knowledge of what she was getting into. A disaster waiting to happen, and it was. But a clever trick the author pulled, since the story is told solely from Emilia’s perspective, I never suspected the real killer because she didn’t.
Now that I think about it, the single point of view might be why I enjoyed this book so much. It reminds me of Twilight in that way. Emilia isn’t a picture-perfect heroine, she makes mistakes, gets into messy situations, and feels all the more relatable because of it.
My Witchy rating of Kingdom of the Wicked
I saved the good parts for this part of my review because Emilia is a witch. In this world, witches are not human. The witches in this book are family covens, they learn from their parents or grandparents. Some practice the dark arts, some do not, but they are all respected among themselves. There is no rivalry between them.
The spells are done with herbs and other ingredients, such as bones. It gives a bit of an old-school vibe to the story. There were also grimoires, which made me so happy, I could already see the old tome and the private one such as Vittoria's. What I couldn't pinpoint is it this was supposed to be set in a certain time in history or in modern times. The story felt like a mishmash between history and modern times.
This story is full of spellwork and magic in various forms, from simple incantations to more complex spells with candles, herbs, and bones. The romance and the mystery are the main focus points of the plot, but magic is a solid side character.
Therefore, this book gets five cauldron cats for Witchyness.
The overall rating of Kingdom of the Wicked
This book was amazing; I love the setting of Italy, the usage of the Italian language, and the food mentioned, which made my mouth water on multiple occasions. To say the book did not make me hungry was an understatement and something I had not expected. The characters are likable and realistic. I like Emilia, she is stubborn and takes matters into her own hands. She can be a little bit naive, but because of her backstory, this can easily be explained and, therefore, did not bother me.
My only criticism of the book is that the ending seems rushed. We do not get a clear insight into why she suddenly decides to make the decision she does. It was a little bit disappointing, but it was enough of a cliffhanger for me to continue with the rest of the series. And the Prince of Sin series, which I hope will be a bit spicier. Kingdom of the Wicked is a young adult series, and Prince of Sin is an adult series. I am looking forward to continuing the series to see how it ends.
I will be adding age ranges to my review as I feel a lot of books nowadays are not targeted to a proper audience. The characters of the book feel adult and yet this story is a young adult story, as it does not have much that would be damaging for a young adult. It could be read from age 12 as this is where the young adult range starts. However, I still think this can be read by adults too.
If you had not guessed by my enthusiastic reaction to this review, this book is getting 5 cats from me, it was just what I needed.
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